When she immigrated from Mexico, Hilda Torres found that making a living in the United States would be more difficult than she had been told. She rallied and started a multilingual daycare that quickly became one of the most successful businesses in her city. Learn how she used grit and education to make her mark! We also have a full-length video interview here.
Transcript
Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers.
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Denzil Mohammed: JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Every Thursday at noon, we explore the world of risk taking immigrants who create new jobs, products and services in Massachusetts and across the United States.
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Denzil Mohammed: The idea of the American Dream is alive and well. Especially outside of the United States, people around the world of every age consider this the land of opportunity. Once you get here, everything will be alright. But there are obstacles in the way. Immigration status, discrimination, access to money and resources, having your communities to support you, learning English, to name a few. For Hilda Torres, an immigrant from Mexico now living in the Boston area, she was promised the world of riches in the U.S. The land of opportunity. What she experienced, though, was not quite nice. Nonetheless, she used the tools of education and her own grit and determination to power through. And now she runs My Little Best Friend’s Early Learning Center in Malden, Massachusetts. One of the most successful businesses in the city. This experience is not unique. But immigrants and refugees have that defining quality of grit, determination and resilience, as you will hear about in this week’s JobMakers Podcast.
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Denzil Mohammed: Hilda Torres, welcome to JobMakers. So glad that you have taken time to speak with us. Tell us a little bit about the business that you run.
Hilda Torres: I run a business called My Little Best Friend’s Early Learning Center and we are in 3D for Main Street and Malden. My Little Best Friend’s Early Learning Center is a family-oriented facility where we care for infants from two months old all the way to five years old and our center has a very big diversity of teachers and kids as well. And we are in the center of Malden and we have families from all over the world coming to our facility to bring their little ones.
Denzil Mohammed: Malden is actually the second most immigrant heavy city in Massachusetts after Chelsea and before the pandemic you had over 100 students from more than 25 different countries, right?
Hilda Torres: That’s correct, yes. And we were really proud about that and also very proud that we had teachers that were bilingual and we were able to communicate with most of these families due to the factors that we have over here. And it just makes it so easy for the transition, when you come from your country and you don’t know what to expect and have someone that is able to speak the same language that you speak back home, it just makes you feel so much better.
Denzil Mohammed: So The Immigrant Learning Center, also through our English language program, we have students from all over the world in the classroom and it’s amazing to see just the diversity that exists in one classroom and how they get along. It’s really a lesson on integration and assimilation and learning other cultures and being prepared to be an American, so I think the idea of all these children and parents and teachers learning from each other, being able to speak other languages is really pretty awesome. And I know you said that being able to be bilingual is an asset and you teach children in your center, what is it? Five different languages?
Hilda Torres: Yes, we teach the kids English, Spanish, sign language and Mandarin. We teach them four different languages. And they keep saying they master the other three languages but they speak more English than anything else. But when you have a child and you are able to teach this child different languages, what you are doing is you are putting all this information in the child’s brain and the child’s brain is gonna be able to accept all the different information and all these different languages. And one of these childs goes to public school and is going to have the opportunity to communicate with other kids. You know what I mean? So it’s just very important, it’s very important for us, the parents, to be able to get our kids exposed to not only two different languages but the diversity of people. Because you are just opening this window of opportunities for these families, which that’s why we are here, because we want our kids to be successful in everything that they want to do and be able to get our kids exposed to different languages. That’s just the greatest tool that nobody is going to be able to take away. Ever.
Denzil Mohammed: That is so brilliantly said that we’ll never be able to take that away from them and I love the idea of growing up with a lot of other languages and wanting to learn other languages. And we think of this very globalized world where we’re interacting with people from everywhere for different reasons. And having an understanding of other cultures, other countries is really, really important. But your journey to the U.S., it really started all the way back in 1965. Tell our listeners first of all, what life was like for you in Mexico … most people in America probably don’t have a sense of what that is like … and your journey to the U.S.
Hilda Torres: My dad, he emigrated to U.S. in 1965. And my dad was a really hard worker as compared to other members of our family who came over here. He usually spend that money every month to be able to support us in Mexico. My dad was alone taking care of seven kids. Sending seven kids to school and everything, I don’t say that it was difficult because definitely other families were in a worse situation than us. But not having a parent around you is an impact that created us to become the person that we wanted to become. So my dad usually come to Mexico once a year for Christmas or for the school vacation. And he stayed in Mexico for about two to three months. At the time, my dad didn’t have a legal status over here in America. So he has to pay for his whole journey to bring him from Mexico over here. And the stories that he tells us about everything that he had to pass through, every year that he had to come back out to Los Angeles, to California; it was just really difficult. Like even right now, to think about it, I think that was the most cruelest thing that you can do to a person. When you have a helicopter flying on top of you and you are so extremely sad the air from the helicopter makes you go around and around. It was just really difficult. And everything that they have to pass. They have to pass the border from different places because they don’t want to get caught. So every time that they go through the adventure, it was rude and it was fear and it was all these different emotions. But then at the same time it was the hope that we’re gonna be able to come in work for nine to 10 months and be able to provide shelter and food for their family back home. So my dad helped us, my dad was able to give us education. We were able to go to school and everything. But as soon as my brother started to become a little bit older, my father went and bring my first two brothers. When they came to America, they were about 14 to 16 years old and they didn’t have papers at the time, so they also have to cross the border with my father or with another member of our family to come over here to America. Luckily, my dad was able to get the green card because he was on something that is called [unclear]. He was in [unclear] but before that they were working in California, collecting the fruits and everything. And once he got the legal status, my dad bring my mom and then they start bringing other people from my family. Myself and my older sister, we stayed in Mexico because at the time we were married and we were not able to qualify for the same status as my other siblings. Because once you are married, you belong to a different status. So we have to stay there for a little bit longer. Back in Mexico, I was a beautician. I have a little place where I cut hair and I do people’s haircuts and colors and all this kind of beauty. And one day my mom came to visit me because she said that I have a large amount of clients and I noticed that she was really tired, very centered on her thoughts and after I finished with my day, she told me if I had an idea how much money I can make if I was doing haircut right here in Boston. At the time, she was living in Boston. And when she did the math, my eyes were like those coin machines when you go to play bingo. In my eyes, I couldn’t imagine the math. If I can make 20 haircuts one day and every haircut cost $10, just imagine the money that I can be making! In Mexico, I charged about $0.25 and other times, I did my haircut for free because a lot of times people don’t have the money to pay for haircut. So once my mom put all the stuff on me, I start talking to my husband and my mother-in-law and thinking, “How can we make this transition and how can we make it happen so we can go to Boston?” We only wanted to come for a year. We only come to make a big amount of money to be able to go back to Mexico and open a salon instead of doing it in my mother’s house, to be able to have a location! A real big salon with employees and everything. So, what we did is we start out working with the papers, so that way we can get our passport, additional visa. And then we sell everything that we own because in one year I gonna be able to come back to Mexico and I can buy everything anew with all the amounts of money that I’m gonna be making. In one year, I’ll be able to come back, buy a bigger house and buy better furniture and better clothing and everything there.
Denzil Mohammed: Hilda Torres packed up suitcases and with her two young children and her husband moved to Boston. But it was not the American dream that was waiting for them. Instead it was a much harsher reality. It was a tiny property in East Boston where her parents and other siblings already were living. They cleared out a closet and put a bed in there and that’s where she and her family slept. And she also had to deal with immigration issues. Being just on a tourist visa, she couldn’t work. She had to regularize her status. She had to find employment. And that’s where the real trials and tribulations for her began.
Hilda Torres: We couldn’t find a job. I couldn’t find who watches my kids because everybody in my household was working and obviously nobody is going to leave their jobs so that they can take care of my kids so I can go to work and nobody wanted to give me the opportunity because in order for you to be able to be a hairdresser or to have any other profession that you mastered in your country, when you come over here to America, you need to have the license and the certification from the place that you come. You know what I mean? All my license and my certificates and everything was worth nothing, nothing over here.
Denzil Mohammed: You have to do everything all over again from doctors and surgeons all the way down to beauticians, right?
Hilda Torres: Everybody, everybody! And in order for me to be able to go to school, I need to learn the language. If I don’t speak English, I’m not gonna be able to go to school and learn the theory of any career! It was just really, really difficult and every time that I found a door that closes for me, I always think if this was the right decision. Putting my family in this situation, if this is the right decision. To be able to come in and put my family in a certain situation because you don’t know when your immigration papers, they’re gonna come out. You may send the application today but for a lot of people, it takes months or years. You know what I mean? And then to learn the language, Denzil! Every time that I was in school, I was sitting down in the classroom and I’m thinking, “Who’s watching my kids? What time am I going to go home to cook? What am I going to put my kids to bed?” It’s just so difficult when you are older, to learn a different language, you know what I mean? It’s just really hard. But it passes. I went to school, I learned the language, I’m going to my first beauty salon that I want to apply in and they say, “We don’t give opportunities to work back. We don’t give opportunities to wetbacks. You need to go back where you came from.” They were in Spanish as well, but they called me a wetback and they didn’t want to do that and I told them, “Give me a week.”
Denzil Mohammed: They were Hispanic as well, you said?
Hilda Torres: Yes.
Denzil Mohammed: And where exactly was this?
Hilda Torres: That was in Chelsea as well.
Denzil Mohammed: For people today to think about Chelsea and East Boston, the way you’re describing it is really, really hard to digest, right?
Hilda Torres: Yeah, it was. I told the owner to let me work for a week for free. I just wanted to show her what I was capable to do. I was already going to school but I didn’t have my license yet because in order for you to have your license you have to get experience. And in order for you to have experience, you need someone to give you the opportunity to be able to bring that experience over here in the USA. I had the experience back home but that was not enough. And she told me to go back home. She didn’t want to give me the opportunity. From there I feel really deflated and humiliated and I didn’t want to go back and ask another person for a job but I was really lucky. A couple days after, I went to a different salon. And in this salon they were from Columbia and the lady who gave me the opportunity, I told her that I have two kids, that I have no job, that I was living with my parents. I explained to her the whole situation and she gave me the opportunity. She gave me the week that I was asking for to show her what I was capable to do because back home, when you go to school they show you the whole entire enchilada. It’s not like you only gonna learn how to cut hair or how to do nails. When you go to school back home they teach you everything around. So I was able to show the owner of the salon that I was capable to develop any work that was coming to the place. And she gave me the opportunity and we come to be one of the most successful parlor shops in Chelsea, back in the days. Like, we have so many customers, we work every single day and it was a business that then all of a sudden just bloomed. Not only for me. I was able to get other girls that were going to school at the same time, to tell them that this place, they can give you the opportunity for you to come in and take your experience and we were able to do really, really good. I was working in that beauty salon for about nine to 10 years but while I was working in the salon, I noticed that most of my money was going to childcare because I still have four kids. When this happened I already have four kids, two older ones that were going to school and two little ones. And in order for me to be successful in the beauty salon and to work long shifts, I need to be able to take my kids to a place where they were able to take care of my kids. So most of my money was going to childcare and it wasn’t making any sense because I was working long hours, leaving my home for long hours, not taking really good care of my kids or my family because I was at work. But my money was going to childcare. So, the owner of the center, which was my sister’s friend (because my sister was the vector of the center), they told me that if I come to work in this center, I can get a discount on my kids and education and even if I only work part time I can always have a discount. So I just started working in this daycare only part-time. Because my language was really bad, I didn’t speak very good English, I was not familiar with early education. Which, a lot of people think that if you are a nanny, there is such a big difference. When you are working at an early education center, you need to be able to teach others stuff. So I went there and I just started only doing diapers and cleaning. That was my only job. I was not allowed to talk to the parents, not allowed to do anything in writing or to do any teaching because I didn’t know. And I just started working in this center little by little. The owner of the center, her name is Stacy. She gave me the opportunity to go to school. So I was working at a beauty salon, going to Bunker Hill to be able to learn more English and to be able to learn early education in working a part time at the other daycare.
Denzil Mohammed: What was it that made you want to get into this kind of business? So, you went from the beauty salon to the daycare, you were learning English, you decided to pursue an associates degree in early childhood education and Bunker Hill but it was not just about the love, it was about being able to support your family. This was a business decision, right?
Hilda Torres: Right.
Denzil Mohammed: So then your cousin came into the picture.
Hilda Torres: Yes, my cousin came into the picture. He was working in construction at the time and he has some money saved and he wanted to invest in something that makes a difference. So, we talk about it. I tell him about my dreams and my goals and what I wanted to be able to make a difference in life and he really liked what I aspired to do. I wanted to be able to cover a facility where, first of all, we are bilingual. So then we can teach our generation of kids Spanish, that way our kids, they are able to communicate with their families back home. You know what I mean? But also we wanted to create a facility that was affordable to middle class families. Wanted to create a facility where we know everyone by name and then we are able to offer the family environment that you don’t see in a chain facility. Because in a chain facility you see a director and the restaurant sometimes is not even there! We wanted to create a family environment. But we also wanted to be able to create a place where we can offer opportunities to working moms like me, to be able to better their life by having a job and at the same time that they’re still taking care of their kids at home or their husbands. It was not something that was easy. Most people when that came had a business plan and that was playing like a dream, the same way I explained to you. Most people, they love all that. First of all, because we were Spanish, our English is not the greatest and I do have other experience in education, however I don’t have experience in my young business. My cousin, he didn’t have that experience as well, so most people, they told us that this dream that we had is gonna turn into a nightmare because there is no money in early education. There is no money in this industry. Early education is an industry where there’s really not much that you can grab. It was really difficult. I cannot count how many banks deny us the opportunity to give us a loan for us to be able to open the business because we are aspirers! In most banks they don’t let you borrow money. You need to be established in their demands in order for you to get a loan. It was just really hard for us to make someone believe that the dream that we had was something tangible. It was something that people were looking for.
Denzil Mohammed: How were you able to finally get it off the ground, and why did you choose Malden?
Hilda Torres: We chose Malden, it was because every time that I was going to work, it was a sign that was on my way that said that Malden is a great place for your kids to grow. For some reason, me seeing that sign every single day was a sign that Malden is going to be my home. Thankfully, we found a bank that was able to believe in us and they were able to give us the money that we needed to be able to afford such a beautiful facility like the facility we are in now. It was a couple times that we were outside of City Hall, thinking if this was the right decision because it was just so many times that we get the doors closed right on our face but one thing that immigrants have is that we don’t take no for an answer. Every time that someone says no to us, we go again. It just takes us so much to get where we are that we are not willing to fight without really, really getting into it. We were open for a couple months and we have no business. I always tell this story where we need to pretty much rent a couple kids so that way we can have the Mayor come in with a book because we need to have a minimum of seven kids and we only have three or four kids. So, we tell our employees, “Bring your kids for free to the daycare, so that way we can have a small group of kids.” So this way the mayor can come in and read a book to the kids. Back in the day, we had four to five students but before the pandemic, we have 170! Every day! We were at fullest capacity.
Denzil Mohammed: Very briefly, how has the pandemic affected your business?
Hilda Torres: Well, as you know, childcare is an industry that has been suffering even before the pandemic. Through the year, childcare is one of the industries that is a problem, but nobody wants to recognize that there is a problem. And so even before the pandemic, a lot of childcares were in a struggle. Now with the pandemic, there is another sentence that they close their doors forever because they were not able to afford to stay open. My Little Best Friends is lucky to have a community that supports us and we are able to still stay in business, but definitely, pandemic affected My Little Best Friends a lot because we are now back to our full capacity. Before the pandemic, we were open from 7:00 o’clock in the morning to 6:00, now we are only open from 8:00 to 4:00 and this is a huge inconvenience for working parents because they need extended hours in order for them to be able to go back to work. And we can only have our capacity right now, 71. Because the Department of Education changed our ratio. So before we used to have 36 square feet per child, now we have 42. Before the pandemic, we had 30+ employees. Right now we have only one.
Denzil Mohammed: I want you to reflect a little bit as we wind down the interview about your father and the decision that he made and where your family is now versus where they would have been if he had never decided to hire Coyote and take him across the border to start working in California. What do you think of that decision on his part and how do you feel about your family? The majority of them living and working and getting educated in the U.S. now?
Hilda Torres: My father, he made the greatest decision to sacrifice himself to be away from his family to come to this country, to better his family. My dad, he is a very hard working man that taught us to work. And when we were back home, we had to work no matter what. And I remember my first job I have to put my knees on top of a chair to be able to wash the dishes because I was too small to be able to wash the dishes. But that was a work and I was able to help out my mom. I think one of the greatest things that my dad did for us was to teach us how to work. I have my business as you can see. So, my other two brothers. I have a brother that owns a trucking company. I have a brother that he owns three racetracks. I would say that all my brothers, they are very successful in what they do. But the greatest heritage that we can give to our kids is, “Don’t be afraid because you are English.” “Don’t be afraid because you don’t have a legal status in this country.” “Don’t be afraid just because you don’t speak the language.” What you need to do is you need to work. You need to work hard. You need to show them that you are not here to steal memories. Show that you are not here because you are a killer back home. That you are not here because you are a bad person that comes to this country to steal from somebody else. Immigrants have jobs to be able to show people their really true image of Barbara in what we are doing here and we are just are very hard working people.
Denzil Mohammed: My last question to you was going to be sort of like, “What message in this particular climate do you have for Americans when it comes to immigrants?” But I think you just answered my question for me right there. Immigrants come here to work. They want a better life for their children. They come with real intention to get something done, no matter how long it takes, no matter what avenue that is. Someone got a PhD from India driving a cab. That is a really truthful and a really powerful message to send to the rest of America about who immigrants are and what they can do and their inherent value. We all, everyone, U.S.-born or foreign-born want the same things; we want healthy children, we want them to do better than we did, we want successful families. It’s all the same. Hilda Torres, I wanted to say thank you so much for making the time to be interviewed today on JobMakers. I really appreciate it. You have such a powerful story and thank you so much for all that you do for Malden and beyond.
Hilda Torres: Thank you so much to The Immigrant Learning Center to give me the opportunity and especially to Denzil. You are one of the greatest person that I know and you are always willing to help people in need. That’s a matter from one country that you always lend a hand to us and then I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to share my story.
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Denzil Mohammed: If you like what you’re hearing and want to hear more of it, become a JobMakers sponsor. Or if you have an outstanding individual entrepreneur, let us know by emailing Denzil that’s D E N Z I L at jobmakerspodcast.org. Hilda’s story was certainly inspiring and we’re so happy that she joined us for this week’s episode of JobMakers. Join us again next Thursday at noon. I am Denzil Mohammed. Thank you for listening to JobMakers.